Activision Blizzard share price down, Titan project axed

The mysterious next-gen MMO project Titan, developed by Blizzard for seven years, had been canceled, the companys CEO said in an interview for Polygon, souring some of the hype as fans look to BlizzCon in November.

The game had never been announced in the first place, though it was acknowledged by Blizzard and quite discussed about the gaming circles. Last year, Blizzard said they were going back to the drawing board with Titan, and the move had evolved into the cancellation of the new IP.

“We didnt find the fun,” Mike Morhaime, CEO, Blizzard, said for Polygon. “We didnt find the passion. We talked about how we put it through a reevaluation period, and actually, what we reevaluated is whether thats the game we really wanted to be making. The answer is no.”

Blizzard is among the most successful video game developers, releasing cult-status household IPs such as Diablo, StarCraft and WarCraft. World of Warcraft (WoW), the massively-multiplayer roleplaying incarnation of the WarCraft universe, is arguably the most successful video game of all time, having turned out more than $10bn in revenue in its 10 year history.

“We had created World of Warcraft, and we felt really confident that we knew how to make MMOs,” Morhaime told Polygon. “So we set out to make the most ambitious thing that you could possibly imagine. And it didnt come together.”

The news failed to impact the stock of the company by a ton, as the game had not yet been announced, let alone priced in, though it leaves much to speculation of whether it was a missed opportunity.

Blizzard is known for polishing its games with nerve-breaking precision, postponing almost every release. The developer has also scrapped a few games, like StarCraft: Ghost and WarCraft Adventures.

Now Blizzard is heading for the long-awaited release of the latest WoW expansion, Warlords of Draenor, in early November, the week after the companys convention, BlizzCon. The expansion has already sold millions of copies, and fans expect fireworks to herald the games 10-year anniversary.

The equally-successful other half of the combined company, Activision, reported its own hugely successful release earlier this month, the first-person shooter Destiny, while later in November it will also release the latest game in its “billion-dollar franchise” Call of Duty, Advanced Warfare.

Activision Blizzard Inc opened Wednesdays session on the downside, losing 0.14% by 13:02 GMT to trade at $21.25 per share, valuing the company at ~$15.25bn. The stock is up 25.51% from a year ago. Betting on the success of the lined-up releases, analysts at the Financial Times project rising stock for Activision Blizzard. 22 analysts offering 12-month price targets had a median of of $26.00, with a high estimate of $30.00 and a low estimate of $23.00.